I have been enjoying a book by Edward O. Wilson, “Consilience the unity of knowledge.” In this book, Dr. Wilson explores some really interesting ideas about how we think, and how that might be a reflection of how we are put together biologically as the result of evolutionary pressures. One of the topics of interest to me is a discussion that perhaps art is in alignment with our biology as evidenced by the presence of certain archetypes and techniques in art that seem to have been common across cultures for tens of thousands of years. There are certain things about “art” that “feel” compelling and connect us to emotional stirrings.

As I was contemplating that I started to wonder, based upon not a lot more than idle musings, if perhaps we automatically build mental models of the world around us that as similar to three dimensional wire models that are the basis of cad drawing packages on drafting computers. When I try to sketch something, perhaps a building or a table, I automatically do so by drawing lines representing the edges of things. I did this for perhaps fifty years before it finally dawned on me that there are no lines in the real world. Somehow I thought I was “tracing” actual lines located along the edges of things. Obviously there are just changes in color, shading, texture and things like that – but there are no lines. However, even with that rudimentary (and rather obvious) insight, it still feels compelling to me that I am somehow drawing lines where there are lines. Maybe, but I might be wrong here, there ARE lines, but they are embedded in the way my brain simplifies, stores and manipulates our perception of the world. Maybe we somehow map the edges as lines, that can then be shifted, manipulated, rotated and simplified in our “mind’s eye.”

I surprised myself a few years ago while sitting under the shade of a tree sketching the great pyramid chicen itza. I was sitting on the ground level with the base of the pyramid, trying my best to accurately represent what I was seeing. I wasn’t trying to be “artsy” by drawing an impossible representation, I was paying attention to angles, perspective, shadows, and all that in an attempt to draw what I was seeing. When I finished my drawing I was kind of pleased with the effort, it looked very much like what I as seeing – but … oops, it was drawn from a position several hundred feet in the air, far above my head.

“Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.” I rather like that as a reminder that perhaps I am not too dumb, maybe what is confusing me is confusing because I am NOT too dumb.

I had been fighting this tendency for several years by tightening up my belt sufficiently to squeeze my belly enough to prevent this potentially embarrassing event. The problem with that is that after a few hours it becomes pretty painful. The fact that I was now hidden from the public opened up the opportunity to experiment with suspenders. I figured that suspenders would do just what they are called, suspend my pants to keep them from falling off. This resulted in a rather extensive online search for the “right” pair of braces (suspenders).The first pair I got were too short (I am 6′ 5″ tall so require LONG suspenders) resulting in them pulling down too hard on my shoulders. In addition to that, the catch that clamps onto my pants was not strong enough and when I bent over the back catches would release, sending them through the air and over my head, with the additional outcome that my suspenderless pants would fall right off, ending up bunched around my feet. Not a fine outcome.

While worrying this situation I happened to be in the parking lot of the local grocery store getting my weekly “curbside” delivery when I noticed a man wearing pants with a belt and suspenders that held up the belt with a hooks rather than with clamps. I ordered a pair of those. They were sort of alright, but they tended to bother me where they hooked onto the belt, they tended to disconnect too easily, and they required a pretty tight belt. Not the option I was hoping for. On top of that, they were also a bit too short.

My next attempt was with clamps again, but also a much longer pair of suspenders. When I got them I discovered that they didn’t attach at the front and back but instead attached at the sides of my pants. They felt what I image it feels like to wear shoulder holsters on both sides. That is an interesting configuration since it leaves the front and back clear. Unfortunately, they were good as long as I wasn’t doing anything but walking and sitting. Trying to do “work” involving bending, lifting and things like that just didn’t feel right and tended to become unhooked.

So that put me back at the store once again, this time getting “regular” clip-on suspenders that are long enough for me. Not only are they long enough but the clips are REALLY aggressive. The clips are big, very strong, and have a big pin that punctures my pants. As long as the clip stays closed my pants will not fall off. I am wearing them right now. This was a great solution. I went for a month or so without a belt just wearing my new bracers. That was pretty liberating. I looked a bit like I was wearing clown pants – but was finally comfortable. Until I realized that if I tightened then enough to keep my pants from drooping they pulled my pants up so much that I ran out of “comfort room” and the bottom of my pants legs were now “high waters”.

The solution to this is wearing a loose fitting belt that keeps my pants from going up, and a loose fitting pair of suspenders keeping them from falling off. It then dawned on me that the slightly funny term for “redundancy” being the use of a “belt and suspenders” is not really redundancy at all. The belt and suspenders might appear to be performing the same function (keeping my pants from falling off), in actuality they are performing very different, non-redundant functions. One keeps things up, the other keeps them down.

As a safety engineer, this shift in focus brings much more meaning than just a funny saying. When reviewing equipment designs for redundancy, it is important to remember that what at first glance might seem redundant might not be that way at all, but instead might be performing very different and important functions that would result in potentially catastrophic, but different, failures of either one of the supposedly redundant elements. An interesting example comes to mind with the FAA’s use of the term on commercial aircraft. They require safety related elements to be redundant, but if the pilot has control should a component fail, then the pilot is identified as the “redundant” element. Perhaps this is true, but that “if the pilot has control” should be considered very carefully to make sure it holds true in all situations.

The university had an actual (albeit very small) observatory, with domed buildings and all that. I really enjoyed that job,especially spending time on the mountain with students learning a little bit about the stars, constellations and ancient myths. One young lady from southern California exclaimed that she was really excited to use a telescope because she had always wanted to see a star and she thought they were only visible through a telescope! (She had never been anyplace where you could just look up and see the stars in the sky.)

Being an introductory class, it was really just a group of amateurs doing live observations with amateur sized instruments, we did almost no work with cameras or other instruments. I soon realized that once you have observed a few dozen objects with a small telescope you were kind of out of new things to see. The highlights consist of the moon, the sun (through an appropriate filter), the planets and most of the Messier list of nebula. The Messier list consists of “fuzzy” objects that Charles Messier cataloged so that he won’t keep getting distracted by them. He used a 100mm telescope, which is close in size to the 117mm one I picked out – so I hope that I can easily find most of these objects over the course of a year or so. Now and then a comet or an eclipse comes along, but other than that you are pretty much out of interesting things to see without moving on to more sophisticated techniques such as photography or using various types of instruments.

Because I had the opportunity to use the university’s telescopes for several years, I didn’t have much interest in going to all of the trouble, and expense, of having my own. However, having grandchildren around rekindled the feeling of awe at seeing some of the more spectacular sights.

I decided to get a small, inexpensive, Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope along with a computerized mount to assist in finding objects quickly while being distracted by people eager to see the “next thing” on the list. I ended up selecting a simple 117mm SkyWatcher “Mak” telescope mounted on a Celestron “All View” mount. Unfortunately, when I went to join the two I discovered that while it all fit together, it ended up with the telescope being “up-side-down” (which means it points in the wrong direction on the mount). I hadn’t accounted for this problem, but the result is that the spotting scope ends up on the bottom of the telescope tube where it is almost impossible to access. I decided that the solution was going to be drilling and tapping holes on the top side so I could mount the spotting scope on top where it is more easily accessible. But then “things” got in the way and I set that project aside for awhile, then covid-19 came along, therefore I lost ready access to my grandsons, and … and .. The short story is that I still haven’t fixed the problem

Because of the “excitement” about Jupiter and Saturn being in conjunction on the solstice this year, and the situation where Saturn’s rings are tilted so we can see them more easily, I decided to try again. I decided to try just putting the telescope on the mount so that the spotting scope is on top. This results in having to install it on the outboard side of the mount (see photo), meaning that the azimuth controls run reverse from what they normally do. I am wondering if the computer will even notice that it is backwards. My guess is that after I set it up it will just point to where it is aimed and that will be the end of the problem. Last night was going to be the test of my theory, but it was cloudy. The storm as passed and perhaps it will be clear this evening. If so, I am going hunting for Saturn in the early evening before it sets shortly after nightfall. I am excited to finally get a chance to look through the eyepiece at what I consider one of the best “amateur” objects of all.

I want to apologize right at the beginning for yet another covid/vaccine posting. I know we are all getting tired of talking about it, but since this has come up again with some of my friends I think another shot at describing what is happening with the vaccines is in order.

There is a LOT of hope being put on the vaccines putting the pandemic behind us. I share in that hope, but realize it is likely to take much longer than people want to consider. As I have discussed previously, the vaccines where designed and tested to determine if they are effective in preventing illness (symptoms) given an exposure to the virus. They did not design, or test, it for effectiveness at preventing infection or spread (transmission). Designing and testing to ensure effectiveness against infection and spreading is a MUCH more difficult and time consuming task, on the order of additional years of effort. So what they have come up with is something that has been shown to be “safe” (whatever that means in this case) and “effective” (preventing symptoms in infected people). That is really great news for those who have a high probability of exposure such as medical personnel and first responders (police, firemen, EMT). Vaccinating enough of them (about 10M people) will provide the kind of statistical evidence needed to determine whether or not it is effective in stopping the spread (transmission) of the virus. As I mentioned in a previous post, there is substantial evidence that it will prevent transmission, but there are still many unknowns that could get in the way.

For the time being, they are planning on starting by vaccinating something in the neighborhood of 20M people by the end of January. That sounds like a LOT (and it is) but it is also only about 6% of the population of the USA. Assuming it works to stop symptoms, that means that there are still about 300M people who haven’t yet been infected, but who still can be. Given the speed with which covid-19 spreads without adequate protection, that can easily reach another 100M – 200M people by the time vaccinations are widespread, resulting in 5M to 10M additional deaths and untold numbers of persons with extremely serious and long lasting aftereffects. We are FAR from the end of the tunnel., in fact we have not yet begun the real brutish part of the pandemic.

My concern is that all the news reports these days are acting like “happy days” are here again and the pandemic has been put on the run. If people get the idea that this means they can let down their defenses (which they still haven’t put up to a level that is required), it is very likely that the pandemic will really explode, overwhelming the health care systems and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of people. In order for this to work we need people to double (and triple) down in their efforts at isolation, masking and hand sanitizing. If they can hold out for another year, there will be time to finish the “experiment” to see if the vaccine(s) prevent transmission, and time for the vast number of people to have been vaccinated. Then it will be “happy days” again, but not until then. Premature letting down of our defenses WILL result in terrible things.

So my recommendation is to stay in “protection” mode until after being given the “all clear” based upon monitoring and testing. Take the vaccine if you feel it is safe enough, but don’t think that will prevent you from catching the virus, or spreading it to your loved ones. Watch what is happening, but don’t get overly optimistic until such time as more research and evidence shows that we have gotten past the problem. This might end up not working nearly as well as it is hoped, but at least it is a major step along the way. I think the bottom line is something like, “Hang in there folks, it will eventually get better if you stay protected long enough to get past it.”

We have finally gotten to the place of implementing perhaps the largest experiment upon humanity of all time – vaccinating billions of people with an unknown and largely untested vaccine that was created using a brand new “state-of-art” approach. I call it an “experiment” because that is exactly what it is, a test to check and see if a theory is correct. The vaccines in question where created with the express intent of preventing symptoms developing from an infection. That is what has been tested, and that is what is meant by “effectiveness”. It means you can be exposed and not develop life threatening symptoms. That is a good goal for individuals, not doesn’t do much for humanity as a whole. Humanity is concerned about preventing infection (not just having symptoms), and it is even more concerned about preventing transmission. There is a largely unspoken theory in the science community that it will not only prevent symptoms, but will also prevent transmission. However, that is the untested theory. There hasn’t yet been sufficient time or resources to adequately test that theory in humans. Some tests have been performed indicating that it prevents transmission in other types of animals (such as monkeys), which lends support to the theory, but it is still unknown if it will be effective in humans. However, we are embarking upon a grand experiment that will test the theory that it is safe, prevents symptoms and prevents transmission. I hope all of these turn out to be correct.

A really interesting part of this story is how we got to this point. A year ago, in December of 2019, the pandemic was known and discussed in the news, in newspapers and among the scientists that keep track of such things. However, it was mostly in China which is so far, far away from our comfortable homes in the USA. At that point in time they (scientists and heath care professionals) knew almost everything about covid-19 that we do now. They knew the infection rates, knew the mortality, knew how it was spread and other things. What they didn’t know yet because there wasn’t time to know about it was that it also causes severe, permanent damage to a wide variety of body parts – you generally don’t “just get over it” like in the case of “normal” flu.

It took about 3 months (until the first of March) to convince regulators in the USA and other countries that the science was correct and this thing was going to become a really, really big deal. However, an interesting thing happened (and continues to happen) in the general population. Many, perhaps most, citizens took the position that “science” is a field that looks backwards to document what has happened, rather than a approach that looks backward to gather information to predict the future (looks at what has been in order to formulate a theory so that the theory can be tested in the hopes that it can then be used to predict future outcomes). What people did instead was look backward and say things like, “There have only been 20 deaths in the USA, obviously it isn’t dangerous.” That is still the gist of what is being discussed when people say, “We did all of these terrible and expensive things to prevent the spread of the disease and we still have about as many cases as … (some place where it hasn’t gotten to yet).” It is as if the fact that since all of those things to prevent the spread worked means that they weren’t necessary because not that much happened. By the way, this is the exact same approach being taken by many people concerning global warming – “it hasn’t been all that bad in the past so it won’t be a problem in the future.”

All of those “super spreader” events are happening because people are looking back as history where there is a relatively small and tolerable infection rate, using that “data” to bolster their theory that it isn’t dangerous and the whole thing is a conspiracy by the government to make a few people very rich and to gain control over our personal freedoms. They are doing science too – creating a theory, and then doing experiments to test it out. These are extremely dangerous, uncontrolled, experiments for themselves and humanity, but experiments nevertheless.

Now it is becoming a little bit clearer that perhaps the scientists had more accurate theories about how it spreads and how dangerous it is and everyone is in a panic wanting “science” to solve the problem. Originally science provided information sufficient to solve the problem quickly, safely, and inexpensively. All we had to do was follow their recommendations to quarantine, wear masks, wash hands, test regularly and wait for 4 to 6 weeks – and it would have been a thing of the past. That approach would still work, but now instead of doing that in isolated pockets it would have to be done everywhere because it has spread to everywhere. It still would work, but the “anti-science”, “anti-vaccinate”, “freedom loving” group won’t comply with those recommendations, therefore they are forcing governments to do exactly what they fear the governments will do – get tough and do what they can to get as many people vaccinated with an unproven vaccine as they can.

Those people that are refusing to wear masks, refusing to follow recommendations, refusing to take simple precautions are in fact the ones that are causing their own self-fulling prophesy. It could be quick, easy, safe, relatively inexpensive – but for the uproar from those that seem to demand another approach that has resulted in millions of deaths, unknown number of permanently disabled people that have “recovered”, the collapse of global economies and the world wide use of an unproven, new vaccine. Good going folks – you have really changed the world (for the worst) and killed hundreds of thousands of people in the process!

(Click the title of the blog to leave a reply in a window that will open at the bottom of this page.)

I keep hearing that in order to help local businesses it is important for us to continue purchasing things from them during this time of the pandemic. I agree with that idea. However, but I began to worry about those businesses (and their employees) that don’t sell products, but instead provide services. Many of those businesses are in an even greater problem than those that provide products (such as restaurants). In many cases the services can’t be provided because they require violation of “social distancing” requirements, or aren’t requested because they are easy to avoid for the time being. How are those businesses going to survive? As I looked around I found that there are some people (such as my wife) that have searched out the people providing these services and are paying them as if they were getting the service. This is not a financial transaction, and it isn’t exactly “charity” – it is acting on the realization that maintaining these local businesses is critical to our well being and the health of the community. If they don’t make enough money to stay in business, they will go elsewhere and that will be a loss for everyone.

We had hoped that the federal and state governments would step up and provide enough assistance to keep them afloat, and to allow them to keep their employees on the payroll – even though there is no job to do during the pandemic. However, while some efforts along those lines have been made – they are generally too little and too late. Our governments don’t seem to have the ability (or desire) to help with this kind of “safety bridge”. So what do we do to help? Many people are donating and assisting with things for the out-of-work folks in terms of food closets, temporary shelters, and emergency support. However, there is almost no support for those small businesses that are going broke and being put out of business because insufficient, or no, customer income. I know I could look up the people I normally do business with – but that would be very awkward, and since it is likely just me, ineffective. They need more than my normal $10 a week (or whatever) business, they need a lot of people like me.

Is there some way that we can pool our assistance for these kinds of businesses? Is it feasible to have a central fund that I could send a contribution similar to my normal “donations” (things that I purchase locally rather than on Amazon)? This doesn’t have to be forever, just until we get through this period of great need. If we do it, those folks can maintain their businesses and lifestyles (food, mortgages, gas money, utilities, etc) – and will be here when we need them after the storm passes. If not, then they will lose their homes, their livelihoods, their investments, and we will lose their businesses that are so important to all of us in our communities. If we don’t somehow find a way to help them in big ways it is going to be a lose, lose, lose, lose situation. If we can find ways to help them get through it, then it is as many (or more) wins.

I think the need is clear and obvious. Now we just need to find a way to get it done – as a community helping our community.

Last weekend my wife and I went to our cabin near Mount Lassen in the California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. We purchased a Christmas tree permit allowing us to catch one tree in the Lassen National Park, in the middle of the trees shown in the accompanying photo. We were at about the 5,500 foot (1675 meters) elevation, at a time of year that should have had a couple of feet of snow on the ground, but we only found traces in the shady locations. We were successful in finding a very pretty little tree.

Now that we have it home and set up in our living room the question of decorations has come up. So far we have decided leave it nude, no lights, no decorations. It was a difficult decision, but we finally decided that what we really like is the tradition of a tree, and the smell of the tree – maybe the decorations aren’t important. I am finding that the presence of a nude tree is a little unsettling. It is causing me to wonder about the meaning of the tradition. It seems to be related to the comfort of our family sharing each other. This year covid-19 has changed things so that we won’t have family to our house, so that we aren’t doing it for the children. Then there is a question of what do the decorations mean, are they important in some way beyond them being pretty? It does feel odd, and somehow incomplete, to have a pretty little naked tree sharing our living room – a dead pretty little naked tree. When I was a child my mother put up a bare manzanita limb. No leaves, just a jagged limb that was perhaps 3 feet tall. I didn’t like it at all, it just wasn’t a “Christmas Tree”. Our new little tree feels a little like that, it is a tree – but perhaps not a “Christmas Tree.” I am interested in seeing how this experiment works out as we get closer to Christmas. Will we learn to come to experience the same thing? Will we break down and put decorations on it? Will we do it again next year? It is an interesting opportunity to watch myself.

For those that like to watch slow moving shows like meteor showers, this Sunday might be interesting. The shower starts in North America at around 10:00 pm, peaks at midnight, and slows after that. This is an interesting meteor shower in part because it is not coming from a comet, but rather from an asteroid, so it is burning up pieces of rock rather than chunks of ice. That gives the meteors a different color, a lot more yellows, along with “normal” white. Because of the direction of impact, they will be slower and more graceful paths than most meteors. The prediction is about 100 per hour, which sounds like a lot – and it is, but it is also only about one a minute, giving lots of time between events. It is not quite like you see in the spectacular photos you see in magazines and such. Those are real, but time lapse taking over many minutes thus “adding” many meteors to the photo. Apparently there have been times in the historical past where the sky was full of meteors all at once, but don’t expect that. “A lot” is not all that exciting. One of the unusually good things this year is that the moon won’t be in the sky, making the sky much darker and meteors easier to notice. The meteors will come from all parts of the sky, not just from Gemini (although Gemini will be coming up over the eastern horizon at about mid-night). You need to plan for about 20 minutes for your eyes to change to “night vision” mode (it is a chemical change and takes awhile).

Astronomers aren’t sure what caused the particles to get separated from the parent asteroid (Phaethon). Phaethon is on an orbit that takes it far outside of the asteroid belt, indicting that it probably got knocked out by a collision of some sort. Perhaps that created a lot of dust and stuff that travel along with it. Apparently that is unlikely. Phaethon gets very close to the sun and therefore get HOT (around 1400 F), and spins meaning it is alternating hot and very cold. Perhaps that is causing stuff to get ejected – also not likely because of various reasons. Or it got smacked somewhere along the way, which seems to be the current pet theory. In any case, the meteors are small chucks of rocks entering our atmosphere at only about about 80,000 mph (instead of 160,000 mph for the Leonids for example).

I hope to drag myself out to look at it, but have a history of not wanting to get up for such as slow moving show. Perhaps I’ll see the tail end of the shower in my early morning star gazing from my hot tub at 5:00 am or so. I won’t see so many meteors, but it will be much more pleasant watching for them.

I have been having a little Facebook chat with a friend from UC Davis. He is deep into the middle of the covid vaccine development so I have trust in what he has to say. It took a few back and fourths to get to the nut of the issue, but we finally did – and I want to share it.

The answer is that I am correct about what efficacy means (as discussed in the media it means “preventing sickness”, not “preventing transmission”). They are being careful about what they claim, and he agrees that it is being misunderstood by most people that read and hear what they are saying.

He said the problem is that they haven’t had time to do the human tests necessary to make a claim about preventing transmission. However, they have done enough tests to be confident that it will prevent transmission by about 99%. But that is based upon assumptions and some science that point in that direction.

His educated opinion is that it will work, and work at an effectiveness for preventing transmission of about 99% . That is very good news. It means if they can manage to vaccinate about 50% to 60% of the population it will be over with because of the creation of sufficient herd immunity. So maybe there is actually a light at the end of the tunnel.